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An Introduction to Chef and to Cookbook Development Flow

“Infrastructure as Code” is a tenet of the DevOps community. But treating Infrastructure as Code is a tall order. Development practices have also evolved rapidly and nowadays that means continuous integration, automated tests and more. We’ll make a brief introdution to Chef, a well-known IT automation tool, and use it to illustrate the state of the art.

João Miranda
on Nov 23, 2014
Cloud

Sam Newman: Practical Implications of Microservices in 14 Tips

What are the practical concerns associated with running microservice systems? And what you need to know to embrace the power of smaller services without making things too hard? At last GeeCon 2014 in Krakow, Sam Newman tried to answer those questions by giving 14 tips about how microservices can interface, how the can be monitored, deployed, and made safer.

Sergio De Simone
on Oct 28, 2014
Interview and Book Review: Managing Windows Servers with Chef

InfoQ spoke with John Ewart about his book “Managing Windows Servers with Chef” that covers all aspects of managing Windows systems with Chef.

Matthias Marschall
on Oct 24, 2014
What UX is and isn't?

User Experience is part of a collaborative, self-contained and balanced team that has all the necessary roles to be wholly responsible for building the right thing, and building the thing right.User experience runs deep, is way more than the UI, and starts in the abstract with the strategy.

Aaron Sanders
on Aug 24, 2014
Book Review: "Taste Test, 2nd edition" and Q& A with Matt Jaynes

Taste Test, by Matt Jaynes, is a book that uses a simple scenario to compare Ansible, SaltStack, Chef and Puppet. On the recently released 2nd edition it adds new chapters on Docker, the communities around the tools, and how they fare on security. InfoQ took this opportunity to talk with Matt to know more about his thoughts on the tools and his approach to configuration management when consulting.

João Miranda
on Jul 14, 2014
Virtual Panel: Configuration Management Tools in the Real World

Configuration management tools are a hot topic on the DevOps community and IT organizations in general. InfoQ reached out to users of each of the major tools (Ansible, CFEngine, Chef, Puppet and SaltStack) to ask them about their experiences. Why did they choose a given tool? How was the tool introduced in the organization? These are some of the questions they answered.

João Miranda
on Jul 01, 2014
Article Series: Configuration Management Tools

Configuration management is the foundation that makes modern infrastructure possible. Tools that enable configuration management are required in the toolbox of any operations team, and many development teams as well. Although all the tools aim to solve the same basic set of problems, they adhere to different visions and exhibit different characteristics.

João Miranda
on Jun 27, 2014
Lessons on Cloud Management at Scale: An Interview With Randy Skopecek

How do real organizations handle the management of a cloud portfolio? InfoQ reached out to Randy Skopecek, the lead applications architect for a midsize insurance firm, to find out more about operating at cloud scale. Running in the cloud after leaving their local data center, Randy and team learned some lessons about what really matters, and how to plan for management at scale.

Richard Seroter
on Jun 15, 2014
Ansible’s View on IT Automation

Michael DeHaan, creator of Ansible, introduces the general-purpose IT automation system. He describes the tool’s guiding principles: simplicity, ease of use and maximum security. The philosophy behind its community is also discussed, including the importance of Ansible’s plugin-based model. Michael uses a simple but common scenario to demonstrate Ansible.

Michael DeHaan
on May 31, 2014
Exploring the ENTIRE DevOps Toolchain for (Cloud) Teams

When assessing technology that empowers a DevOps transformation, it’s easy to focus in on the headline capabilities (“configuration management!”) and miss out on the bigger picture. How can teams shipping cloud (or on-premises) applications use the full suite of DevOps technologies to simplify delivery and management at scale? This article classifies and explains key enabling technologies.

Richard Seroter
on May 28, 2014
Database Continuous Delivery

The database creates a real challenge for automation, hence participation in continuous processes. Scripting database objects change-scripts into traditional version or using 'compare & sync' tools is either an inefficient or risky thing to automate, as the two concepts are unaware of the other. A better solution needs to be implemented in the shape of Continuous Delivery and DevOps for database.

Yaniv Yehuda
on May 08, 2014
Untangling the Enterprise With Continuous Delivery

John Kordyback explains why you should and how you can introduce Continuous Delivery into a typical enterprise, where dozens of systems adopted over the years generate massive complexity. Learn how value-stream mapping and Lean Startup thinking help to create a deployment process which serves as a solid foundation for further improvements on the whole software change lifecycle.

John Kordyback
on Apr 16, 2014